Maybe the mainstream media is getting it - but the insurers are helping them. The Denver Post business page had the left column today titled "
"Holes" not very filing for patients".
Seems the insurers can't keep their mouths shut about how good Medicare D has been for them. The important quotes are below the fold (all bold is my emphasis):
Be thankful for charity when drug and insurance companies eat all the doughnuts. The largest of the providers, UnitedHealth and Humana, Inc., reported record second quarter earning thanks to this new government-created business opportunity.
"We're on track to grow revenues 50 percent this year as we ... expand our Medicare business into a long-term growth engine; boasted Humana CEO Michael McAllister in a press release."
But come on, no one would take advantage of the federal government - after all, outsourcing controls costs, right? Well, maybe not - as the article continues:
The Center for Economic Policy and Research ... recently studied 20 commonly prescribed drugs purchased by the Veterans Administration, which can negotiate with drug manufacturers, and Medicare, which can't.
The study showed Medicare paying twice as much for drugs in some cases. This meant more than $50 billion in excess profits for drugmakers in Medicare D's first year, the study said.
"That's more than twice the size of the doughnut hole," wrote the study's author, Dean Baker. "Congress designed a plan that ensures high profits for the pharmaceutical and insruance industries."
The Center's study is here
I love the neo con arguments about efficiency of privatization. So far, the biggest efficiencies I see are in transfers of wealth to corporates. It doesn't just offend, it disgusts me.
Seniors have to understand that continuing on as the government has been will devastate their economic future. Their choice is now.